Connections
by DibsOnOdair
Summary: But she's a Career, and Careers aren't supposed to feel.


Request from an anon on one of my other stories. :3 I can't see Clove and Peeta as anything other than allies really, so this actually was kind of difficult...

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Clove was never meant to win the Hunger Games.

She trained. Hell, she trained harder than anyone. She won the right to go into the Games two years early, at the age of sixteen, a rarity among the most deadly teens in all of Panem. She was heartless and brutal, wanting nothing more than to kill and to win and to spend the rest of her life being known for her unforgiving nature, a shining example of what a Victor should be.

Except she wasn't.

She was the best. She was always the best. She could hit a target from seventy yards away, with her best being over one hundred. She had the best trainers and took all the upper classes and even Victors of their own Games swore that they never wanted to face her in combat. With a knife in her hand, Clove was ruthless.

She came to wonder, as the years passed, however; separate the knife and the girl, and what was left?

When Clove was small, only six or seven, her father put her first knife in her hand, showed her how to hold it and how to throw it, and pointed out to Clove all the especially weak spots in the human body. Chinks in a potential opponents armor. Two weeks later, he gave her her first personal pet, a beautiful canary with shining yellow feathers.

Then he pressed a knife into her hand and urged her to throw it.

Because it was expected of her, she did. The crimson that ran from the bird stained and tainted its bright feathers, turning the very epitome of beauty and innocence into a symbol of death and destruction. She cried silently, watching it bleed, while her father smiled proudly.

"Clove. You must never mourn death. It's a natural part of life. You are just… speeding up the process." He grinned before giving her a hard kick to the stomach and instructing her to rid them of the mess. She fought down tears the whole time.

The animals grew bigger over the years. A small friendly pair of mice that liked nothing more than to curl up in your hand and sleep, a cat with bright yellow eyes whose tail swished lazily over Cloves bare feet in the summer sun, a rooster whose cries woke her in the dead of winter. The worst was the dog. A huge, drooling, playful thing that Clove rode around the house as a baby. The dog, Lucky, had been with her for years, and because even her dad seemed to love the thing, she had deemed her safe from harm. Safe until the day before her sixteenth reaping, when her father took her and Lucky into the backyard and presented her with a knife, a wickedly curved blade that Clove had a startling—even for her—accuracy with.

"No." She backed up until her rear pressed against the fence, shaking her head furiously. "Daddy this is different!"

"Clove, you're going to be in the arena with someone you know. Victors don't care about anyone or anything. They care about winning. You _will_ win, Clove." She took one look at her father, a Victor himself, a look at her dog, sitting expectantly, as if waiting for her to throw a bone or take her for a walk, and then vaulted over the fence. She stayed in the Academy that night, pulling some training mats on top of each other to make a makeshift bed, and cried herself to sleep, more lonely than she'd ever been.

The next day, she was reaped for the Hunger Games.

Later, on the train ride, she would contemplate that her father had rigged it somehow. He was a Victor himself; he had some influence in the District. Besides, he always seemed a little too friendly with the female escort. Luckily for her, at least, this was not his year to mentor.

She vowed she would win. She knew she could easily take down Cato, who despite being brutal and physically strong, had always been lacking in speed. Besides, she knew where to place her knives. He wouldn't be able to touch her. She knew that District Two repeatedly churned out the strongest, the cream of the crop, the best of the best tributes. It was to be expected that either Cato or herself would win, and so she vowed that it would be her.

But later that day, watching the recap of the reapings, Clove experienced something she'd never experienced before.

None of the tributes had really stood out to her. There was a small, elusive looking girl from Five that Clove took the slightest notice of, merely for the slightest hint of a smirk on her surprised face. There was a huge brute from Eleven, a monster next to his wisp of a partner, who Clove would not want to face in hand to hand combat. But surprisingly, she sat up to take note of the tribute from District Twelve.

Rarely has a tribute from Twelve won the games. In fact, in the entire seventy four year history, it has happened precisely twice. But there's a tiny twinge in her heart when she watches the girl volunteer for her sister, envelop her in her arms and then march up to the stage, confident that she just saved her sisters life, at least. The tiniest smidge of jealousy tinges Cloves mind, and then she scoffs at herself. Her, Clove Mason, jealous of a twelve year old from District Twelve? She must be going insane. But she takes note again of the male, whose face just looks so broken and defeated when his name is called. She pushes the thought from her mind, because she's going to win, of course.

Days later, she's secretly enthralled at their flaming chariot bit. They were holding hands, a unified pair amidst tributes who would barely look at each other. Clove racked her mind, through her history lessons, but she could never remember a time when the tributes were displayed like that, as a couple.

She watched them in training. They stayed together, and Clove vaguely wondered if they were to be allies in the arena, and just as quickly concluded that of course they would be. Their mentor wouldn't go through all of this only to split them apart at the first gong.

And then the interviews. Clove had prided herself in acting as arrogant and self-assured as possible in her interview, and she had definitely won some sponsors hearts, but what won hers was the confession from the male from Twelve, Peeta. For the second time in her life, Clove was jealous. It wasn't as if she was in love with the boy, but merely that she longed for the affection of someone, anyone.

The next day, as soon as her metal plate had risen to meet all the others, she glanced around. She could see the girl, setting her feet up to run, and the boy shaking his head at her. She forces the thought out of her mind and concentrates just as the gong rings out.

It's simple enough to get to the Cornucopia. She's always been fast. She scoops up a handful of knives and whips around, surveying her targets. She quickly takes out a female from some District that's not important to her, and then she sees her chance.

The District Nine boy is grappling with the girl over an orange backpack. Her knife reaches his back before she can have a second thought. The girl takes off, and Clove can easily take her out, so easily, with two knives at once, and she's running after her, holding them exactly the way she's always been taught and she pulls her arm back, preparing to throw, and something distracts her. Maybe it's the dim memory of the boys eyes on interview night, or maybe it's that somewhere, somewhere deep down inside Clove, there's an actual heart with feelings, but Clove changes her hand position slightly. Not enough to arouse suspicion or lose her any sponsors, but enough to make one of the knives veer to the right slightly. Then she throws. One of them misses completely, as she knew it would, but the other gets lodged in the girls pack. She keeps running, unaware of the gift Clove just gave her, and Clove turns back around to the Cornucopia.

The bloodbath is almost over when she returns, and it doesn't take long to finish after that. Many are dead, but Clove doesn't care to count, doesn't care to inspect the bodies of boys and girls laying around her, boys and girls that had hopes and dreams and futures before their names were drawn out of a reaping ball. She sticks knives in her jacket, all she'll ever need and more, and then helps her allies arrange everything. The District Three boy is with them, claiming he can rewire the mines, but Clove doesn't bother to listen. She wouldn't understand the technology anyway.

"Look." The girl from One, an annoyingly perfect blonde bitch, stands up and points across the field. Clove tightens her grip on her knife and then releases it when she identifies the person.

"I bet you're wondering how she got that eleven, aren't you?" The boy calls out across the field. Cato and Glimmer scowl, but Marvel laughs just a tiny bit, undetectable to anyone but Clove, standing right beside him. She glances over, and he mouths silently "Kid's got balls!"

"Don't." She says quietly, more to Cato than to Glimmer, who's a shit aim with the bow and arrows anyway. "He can help us find her." Cato scowls again, but nods once, quickly and decisively. Marvel walks out, his hands raised, to pull the boy back in, and Clove can see the relief on his face.

Later that night, she volunteers to take the first watch. There's too much to think about and too many Victories to plan for her to sleep just yet. The boy volunteers to stay up with her, which surprises everyone. They sit in silence for a while as the other four drift off, and then he speaks up.

"You're Clove, right?" She nods, pursing her lips. She can't make connections. She can't feel, even the slightest bit, for this boy. Not after she possibly sacrificed everything to let his partner survive. "Peeta." He sticks his hand out to her and she just stares down at it.

She studies his face out of the corner of her eye as he reclines, staring up at the sky. She realizes, quickly and suddenly, that he has no intention of winning the Games. He has no intention of helping any of the Careers win. He's with them to protect her. He's sacrificing his life for her.

"You've really loved her your whole life?" She says softly, and she's sure that he can recognize the change in her voice. He sits up quickly and glances around at the others, all sleeping underneath the faux sky.

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. This is different. I never expected to—" She just shakes her head slightly and smiles for what feels like the first time in years.

"I won't say anything. But if you come after me, I'm not going to be forgiving." He swallows once and she resists the urge to laugh, and then he nods.

He falls asleep eventually, but Clove just raises her knees to her chest, resting her chin on her knee, staring out over the arena. She wonders if she'd ever be able to do that, to make the ultimate sacrifice for someone she loved. Is there anyone that she truly cares for enough to be willing to sacrifice her life for?

But Clove is a Career, and Careers don't feel.

Days later, when he is gone from them, either dying from the leg wound or being nursed back to health by his partner, and it's just Cato and Clove left, her heart still races slightly when a cannon fires. She watches the night sky carefully, but his face never appears. When they announce the feast, Clove knows immediately what they need. Food. Their supply stash is gone, blown up days ago, and what little they've been able to catch was almost unbearable after the rich foods of the Capitol.

She volunteers to go get it and vows that she'll give the audience a good show. Despite her words, she has no intentions of killing anyone. In fact, with the announcement of the feast, Clove's heart races again.

This time though, it's from dread.

She hides herself in the Cornucopia as daylight breaks. The redhead from Five appears and then vanishes with hers, but that's not Cloves target. When the girl from Twelve appears, desperate to reach the tiny orange pack that most likely contains the medicine that will keep the boy alive, she emerges. She can see rustling in the field where the boy from Eleven is, and estimates that she'll have to waste some time, but if she doesn't start now, she never will.

She throws the knife slightly off center. She wonders vaguely what her trainers think of her failing aim as she tackles the girl, and eventually pins her to the ground. She doesn't even recognize where the voice of the deranged girl comes from, but it's convincing enough. Seconds pass, and a hand wraps around her. She knows immediately, from the pure strength of the muscles squeezing her, that it's the boy from Eleven.

"You killed her?" Clove may have underestimated him. He could just kill her now, before Cato had a chance to appear. He's still talking, but there's a rushing in her ears and she screams. Somehow they form into words, and then he's talking again.

"CA-TO!" Her voice breaks, but she can hear him crashing towards her. "CA-TO!"

"Clove!" He's too far. He's too far. The rock descends toward her skull and Clove hits the ground, panting through the pain. An immeasurable amount of time passes, and then Cato appears above her. She wants to scream. He should be off, fighting the boy from Eleven, dying at his strong hands. That would leave only a few people left for the pair from twelve to fend off. Only two people, and then they would go home.

Cato's begging her to stay, but she doesn't want to. She welcomes the darkness that veils her vision. Her dying wish would not come true.

She's failed him.

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Okay so the ending is really weird because it's late but I really wanted to put this up... Anyways, tell me what you think, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE submit MALE tributes to me for my second SYOT!

Reviews are like cupcakes, and cupcakes are awesome.


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